After the Medals: Real talk with Olympians

Athletes get personal and share thoughts on family, female equality in sports, Tokyo plans and eating their vegetables

By Stephanie Losee

Now that the XXXI Olympic Games are over, what’s next? We asked three questions of the athletes who visited the Visa Everywhere Lounge, a space showcasing Visa’s payment technologies across from Rio’s Copacabana beach volleyball stadium. Each athlete is a member of Team Visa, a group of 59 sponsored athletes who embody Visa’s values of acceptance, partnership and innovation. Here are some of their most memorable answers.

Q: Ashton, Visa posted outtakes from the Carpool commercial shoot in which you would give yourself guff and egg yourself on by saying, “Come on Eaton!” You were criticizing yourself but you also had this incredible sunniness about it. Is that your self-talk when you’re competing?

Eaton: I would say there’s some of that going on. When it comes down to moments like that, you do have things in your mind where it’s like, ‘Jeez I might not make it,’ so you try to shut it out with something a little bit louder. Just saying to yourself, “Come on, you can do it”—I remember saying to myself during the pole vault [when I missed two tries in the opening height] and in the long jump. I said to myself, “this is the Olympic Games, figure it out.” You try to make it positive because negative things creep in and affect your performance.

Q: Brianne, what is your self-talk like when you’re going through all of your events?

Theisen-Eaton: When I perform the best, I don’t have any self-talk really. Things are kind of like…quiet. But it’s the same when things are going badly; thoughts creep in and you’re trying to drown them out.

Eaton: I would say it’s different for a race versus a field event. During the race there’s no time for talking. You don’t say anything to yourself—you get in the blocks and you go. But when you’re doing something like the high jump and you miss a bar, that’s when I start saying “okay, do this that and the other thing.”

Q: Brianne, I read an interview in which you were talking about constantly being referred to as Ashton’s wife. What do you think female athletes can do to shift the conversation to themselves as athletes?

Theisen-Eaton: When I was competing in London, I got referred to as the fiancé of Ashton, which I was frustrated about. But when I look back, I think they were doing that because I wasn’t on anyone’s radar for winning a medal and maybe they were just trying to help people understand who I was. As in these Olympic Games when a commentator referred to a female athlete as the wife of a professional football player, the [headline] should never be that, but somewhere in the article it could be mentioned so that it grabs more readers and she gets more attention and people can begin to understand who she is. But I’ve had a ton of articles written about “Ashton Eaton and wife.” It’s frustrating for sure. For the first time I was not referred to as Ashton’s wife in this Olympic Game. They never mention you [turning to Ashton] as the husband of me. I don’t know how to fix it; that’s a hard question.

Eaton: The answer would be the key to everything, like women in politics, women in the workplace, because it’s across the whole spectrum.

Theisen-Eaton: It would be interesting to see. Like, if you just wrote their name, would it be read as much? I have no idea.

Eaton: It starts as soon as a kid is born, you get the pink and then you get the blue, right? You get the dolls and you get the trucks. There’s already a differentiation there. I tell you, people should read up on that ancient Spartan culture. At the time, as far as I know, they were the only culture in which men and women were educated and treated equally. When they were seven they all received the same education and everybody shaved their heads, so there was no differentiation. The men and the women both fought and did the same physical training because that was a big part of their culture, and the only reason the women stayed back while the men fought is that they had the kids. But because they stayed back, they also had to protect the city. So they wanted them to have the same training.

Q: As a weekend athlete I know that when you’re a triathlete there are always two sports that you love and one that you secretly hate. Which is it?

Jorgensen: I really love running—running is my favorite. The least favorite would be swimming, but only because I hate being cold and wet. Jumping in the cold water is really difficult for me every day, which is really crazy too because I grew up swimming. When I was younger, everyone told me to run because I was more gifted at it and I said no because I love swimming. So, that passion has changed. A lot.

Q: So Patrick, you can hate it together since you’re a cyclist.

Lemieux: I still go out and ride a fair bit but I struggle with it because I hate going out in the rain.

Q: Patrick you gave an interview in which you talked about the choice you made to leave cycling and support Gwen’s training full-time, and you said you know it’s a finite choice—an athlete’s career is finite. Gwen, you just won gold and you’re rising still. Are you already thinking Tokyo?

Jorgensen: We have no plans honestly. Obviously that is going to be one of the many choices that we could make and may make, and right now we’re just trying to enjoy this gold medal. It’s something that we invested in for four years…

Lemieux: …And further, Gwen has two races left in the series. She’s entered to compete in them in the next few weeks but we just need a week to decompress and figure out what are we going to do and then on Friday we can forward. She might step back into it for three or four days and go, “okay, this is great, I’m going to try and be a world champion again” or she might just go, “ah, let’s just hang it up for the year and give me three or four months to figure it out.” We had planned everything to a T up until yesterday [August 20th] and it’s been stick to the plan, own the plan, that’s what we’ve been doing and last night we went to bed and we had no idea what we were going to do today. We’re just taking it one moment at a time.

Q: How do you do that? Peak at this level and then get down enough and then up again to peak in two weeks?

Jorgensen: The world championship is decided over a series, so you have to peak multiple times in a year. I’d say it’s harder mentally than physically. And I have a great sport to help me do that.

Lemieux: A common theme with a lot of coaches is, with the Olympic Games that’s the one day when you need to be 150 percent. Our mantra the last four years for Gwen is you just need to show up…

Jorgensen: …And be ordinary.

Lemieux: Just do what you do and that will be enough. Gwen showed yesterday that she did 100 percent of what she was capable of and that was enough.

Q: I asked Visa employees from our Brazil office what they would want to ask you, and here’s what one of them said. “Brazilians are familiar with the struggles you had growing up. How does this gold medal affect the way you think about your life story?”

A: My struggle and everything I’ve been through is one of the many reasons why I’ve been able to get to this medal. This medal was not in the making since yesterday. This medal has been in the making for many, many years, and thanks to all of the people who have been by my side and all of the people that I’ve looked up to and all of the excellent people who have helped me throughout the difficult times in my life, I’ve been able to achieve what I’ve been able to achieve today.

Q: What are you and your fiancé going to do to celebrate this incredible accomplishment, on home soil during Brazil’s Olympic Games?

A: We have two dogs. One bulldog named King and one Staffordshire terrier named Nutella, because she’s black. We love dogs, and I miss them terribly. So the first thing I’m going to do when I get back to Vitoria [Cerutti’s hometown] is to be with my dogs and my fiancé and it will be our time. I’ve been here for three weeks so I’m going to spend time just with them. The most sacred time for me is when I go home and close the door behind me and just let everything go and relax and exhale and put my bags down and just let go.

Mariana Pajón (Colombia, Women’s BMX, Gold Medal)

Q: You’re such an exciting athlete, possibly because you started so young and won your first championship when you were five years old. I couldn’t even ride a bike until I was seven. So I understand how you could be riding a bike at five but how do you compete at five?

A: I started riding a bike when I was three because I wanted to be like my brother. My dad likes crazy sports and wanted me to do some fun stuff, and I learned so fast that I was riding the track when I was four. I signed up for my friend’s race when I was four and I started racing in the nationals when I was five.

Q: Another question that normal people wonder is that BMX is very dangerous; there are a lot of falls, it’s very fast—how do you stay healthy long enough to compete? Don’t injuries get in the way of competition?

A: I have already broken 18 bones. I have a lot of things on my body now. I try to avoid them; I try not to think about it. You have to train 100 percent not thinking about crashes or falling down, just being eager—I just love what I do. I don’t care. I crash and I stand up. We crash a lot and the stupidest crashes are when we break something. I used to do gymnastics so I know how to roll and be elastic and be a ball. You go so fast and you just have a second and you don’t think about it, you fall and you make your body be a ball and just roll and it’s hard but sometimes you can get out of it.

Q: What was your second favorite moment of the Olympic Games?

A: When I came here it felt like home, all the screaming and all the flags in the stands, and then I stood up on the podium and the anthem starts sounding, and everyone starts singing. I started crying. It was something from another world.

Q: If that was your second-favorite moment, what was your favorite moment?

A: I think it was just before the finals, just before the main event. All the people screaming and knowing you’re achieving your dream and they’re all feeling it. I just didn’t care about the results. I came here with my 100 percent just thinking about doing my best and enjoying the moment and I was so happy about it. To see all the people screaming, scream my name, scream my country, that was my favorite moment.

Sam Mikulak (United States, Men’s Gymnastics)

Q: You’re young and you came just shy of a medal in the high bar—are you tired of people asking whether we’ll see you in Tokyo? Is the next Olympic Games one of those things you can’t even think about right now?

A: No, not at all, if anything it inspires you to go back and train harder. Even if I had success I’d probably want to continue that success and just make a legacy and I think every day in the gym working hard and practicing, that’s really where you get to test yourself as a human and I feel like I’ve overcome so much , I’ve learned so much about myself. There are all these different takeaways every single second that you’re in the gym that I find enjoyable and gives me purpose in life.

Q: What do you want to talk about more in interviews?

A: I wish I could express how hard every single day potentially is. And how mindset can really affect it. When I moved from Michigan to Colorado Springs I had a lot of distractions, I had a very different life in Michigan than I did in Colorado Springs [where there is a gymnastics training center] where all of a sudden it was 100-percent commitment. I’m eating very specific meals, I gave up drinking alcohol, I made sure that everything I did in my entire life I would ask myself, in this moment is this going to help me win an Olympic medal? So that’s what I would judge all of my decisions off of. It’s so crazy to be living that way for so long and it makes you question so many different aspects of your life. And I started doing so many things that I never thought I would do. I started reading a whole bunch, started to go on hikes all the time, I would enjoy food in a different way now that I’m dieting in such an insane way. I let myself have one cheat meal for my soul and all of a sudden I’m like, “Wow, I’m obsessed with vegetables”—a really good vegetable is insane to me now.

Maria Espinoza (Mexico, Women’s 67kg+ Taekwondo, Silver Medal)

Q: You are the first Mexican to win three medals in three Olympics. You’ve spoken about your modest upbringing and your long journey to the public stage; did you ever imagine an outcome like this?

A: I didn’t start dreaming about multiple Olympic Games until I started my first Olympic competition. At that point, medaling in more than one Olympics seemed very far away. But now I have three Olympic medals in three Olympics, and I am living a dream.